The Defense of Ben Gantry

Our protagonists had collected Ben Gantry from his kidnappers but before they had the opportunity to leave, two individuals, a young woman and a older man, approached the scene of the accident by motorcycle. They came to a halt and dismounted quickly moving to assess the situation and ascertain the health and safety of Ben. These two individuals, Ariel and Jack, were members of the squad hired in Seattle to collect him from the Salish-Sidhe Council and bring him to the Tír. Amid the noise of sirens our protagonists agreed to allow the two newcomers to travel with them for the near term; otherwise they were likely to all get picked up by the Tír constabulary.

Olympia knew of a place they could stay, a new age store named the White Horse run by Unicorn shaman on the Tír side of Boise. Arriving there, the one of the shamans, named Jeff, offered them a room and safety, concealing their vehicles, and allowing them privacy on the second floor of his establish. There, the team hashed out a basic plan: head southwest out of town toward the town of Vale and cross the Wildlands until meeting up with the old Interstate corridor at Serentaneyo (Eugene, OR) which would take them north to Cara’Sir once more.

All went well, leaving the White Horse. Constabulary drones were still circling the accident location and the team was able to load into the van, with Ariel’s bike in the back next to Olympia’s drones, and head out of town. The drive went smoothly for roughly the first hour, but about 10km outside the town of Vale, a constabulary roadblock had been set up. The cars in front of the van were waved through with ease, but Olympia noticed that the officers blocking the left-hand lane seemed to be taking quite an interest in them.

When it was their turn to be inspected, Adrianna had concealed the team–with the exception of herself and Olympia–using a task from one of her spirits. The officers asked the cousins to step out of the vehicle and others moved to search it. Concealed members of the team exited the vehicle as well in order to avoid accidental discovery, but Ben Gantry tripped and fell out of the vehicle alerting the officers to the presence of the hidden individuals.

What erupted then was a somewhat harrowing firefight. On the Matrix, Octan and a hacker from the other team began to square off, though neither faced the other directly. The opposing hacker quickly moved to brick the van, keeping the team from driving away. Octan, realizing the situation, dispatched a call for help from his contacts in the Rinelle and proceeded to hack various and sundry items for the officers. Olympia re-entered her van but was quickly pinned down due to shotgun fire from one of the constabulary vehicles, but this ended as the Brothers Pliskin leaped into the fray.

Adrianna used her final Alchemical preparation to increase her own speed but found her self somewhat stymied by the actions of Ariel and Olympia. The former unloaded full automatic covering fire at approaching reinforcements while Olympia directed her drones to do the same after successfully assassinating the hacker by firing at his location through the windows of the vehicle in which he stood. In short, despite being outnumbered, the greater firepower of the team allowed them to carry the day and even capture one of the constabulary forces, Carlos.

Talking to Carlos, it became clear that he and his allies were only pretending to be law enforcement officers. In reality, they were hired muscle sent to get Ben Gantry on the orders of Mr. Johnson, of course! Octan’s help arrived and in spite of some trepidation from Adrana, the van was hooked up for a tow. They tossed Carlos in back of one of the cop cars and commandeered it following the tow truck off the beaten path and into the Wildlands.